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For the past few years, the semiconductor manufacturing supply chain has been under tremendous pressure. Karen Savala, President of SEMI Americas, joins us to share some of the trends for the future and why the pressures may never let up.

Karen Savala: “We find that the semiconductor manufacturing industry is now tied more than ever to the national GDP . . . [and to] consumer electronics. . . . This whole trend towards consumers has really changed the supply chain dynamics and the way that customers are ordering supplies, products and materials. . . .The other trend is the diversification of the end product. . . .This complexity driven by the consumer is having a really big effect on the supply chain.”

During her show, Karen Savala talks about:

What manufacturers in the semiconductor supply chain have been doing to address the pressures

What SEMI members believe the trends are that create pressures in the manufacturing supply chain

Whether or not there are some links in the supply chain that are completely stable or could cause a catastrophic failure

What she believes the future hold for the semiconductor manufacturing supply chain

Are we unique? Is the nearest technology or life so far away that we are basically alone? Or is there intelligence outside our world? Jill Tarter takes us inside the world of SETI and talks about the science that happens at SETI, how they go about looking for intelligence outside of earth, and what would happen if we find signals that indicate there really are intelligent beings out there.

“In looking for extraterrestrial intelligence, we can’t really define intelligence. So, what we do is we use technology as our proxy. What we’re looking for is evidence of someone else’s technology doing something to their environment in ways that we could sense over interstellar distances.”

During the show, Jill talks about:

The kind of science done at SETI.

Whether or not we can know that is life elsewhere.

The tools that are used as they search for extraterrestrial intelligence.

How SETI handles the massive amounts of data.

SETI’s Citizen Scientist Program.

How often they receive new and interesting signals.

What will happen the moment someone locates a signal that is not occurring naturally.

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The Design & Verification Conference (DVCon), sponsored by Accellera, continues to thrive as the premier conference for functional design and verification, focused on bringing information to engineers from the leading edge of technology, techniques, standards, and methods. Among many of the conferences best features is its unique and popular poster session. During the conference, attendees themselves choose the best paper and best poster in real time.

We invited the General Chair and Technical Program Committee Chair of DVCon 2014 to share some of the secrets to its success. They tell us what it’s like to lead this conference and how you can benefit from it whether or not you are able to attend. Ambar: “It’s a focused conference. I am actually a practicing engineer, and one of the things that I can get out of DVCon, and this is what the TPC knows, is that everything that is presented has a very pragmatic and practical aspect to it. Our goal, is that everyone leaves the conference, and comes out with at least one idea that they can take back and practice.”

We would like you to please take note that DVCon is very excited to announce that it is expanding into Europe! You will be able to join the Design and Verification Conference and Exhibition Europe on October 14th and 15th, 2014, in Munich, Germany. Stan: “One of the things we are doing is extending the DVCon brand. There will be a DVCon Europe coming in October this year in Munich. . . .there is a call for papers right now . . . .We really want to have DVCons around the world.”

During the show, Stan and Ambar talk about:

Why design and verification engineers should want to attend the Design and Verification Conference 2014.

The secret that is causing DVCon to grow while other larger conferences are experiencing a decline.

How they handle the high submission volume of DVCon papers.

The hardest part thing about being General Chair of DVCon (a question for Stan).

What Accellera is planning to do at DVCon in the future.

How those who are unable to attend DVCon can still benefit from the conference.

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The social media revolution has rapidly taken over the business world. Companies are striving to create social media strategies that work to meet their goals while also appealing to customers and continually offering them value. Dell has developed a well-recognized social media strategy that employees are passionate about and customers engage with.

We invited Eric Nystrom, a Director of Social Media at Dell, to talk about empowering businesses to harness and harvest the power of social media.

Eric Nystrom:“We found out that social media was going to be really critical for Dell in 2005/2006 when we really started our journey. . . .We learned early on that conversations were happening about all parts of our business, not just about marketing or customer care. Harnessing and harvesting the value of social media across our business, in all aspects of our business, has proved to be very valuable.”

During his show, Eric talks about:

How critical social media is to Dell’s business and why.

How Dell is able to keep track of everything their program is covering as well as demonstrate the value of the program to executives and employees.

The five main points of Dell’s Global Social Media Policy:

Protect Information

Be Transparent and Disclose

Follow the Law, Follow the Code of Conduct

Be Responsible

Be Nice, Have Fun and Connect

Dell’s Social Media and Community University (SMaC U) .

What he believes is going to change in terms of social media for business in the next couple of years.

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In a decade or so, the world as we know it will change dramatically. The Internet of Things is emerging and it will surely be the next technological revolution. It will bring about communications and interactions between man and machine, the likes of which only science fiction writers dreamed. Oleg Logvinov is an expert in the up-and-coming Internet of Things. He talks about what it is, how it is being created, what scenarios we can expect to live in, plus increasingly critical security and privacy issues. The Internet of Things is poised to alter the way we work, play, and live.

Oleg Logvinov: “. . . [The Internet of Things] presents itself in so many different ways to so many different people. It depends on who you are what you are working on. The Internet of Things may be a sensor connected to the cloud [or] maybe it’s a collection of devices working behind the scenes to make your life better. That is one of the interesting elements of the Internet of Things. Since this is an emerging . . . field, it presents an opportunity to define what it will be.”

During his show, Oleg talks about:

What the Internet of Things is.

What it will look like to have smart devices talking to each other and how it’s already happening.

Where all of the processing is that enables the Internet of Things.

Whether or not he believes the Internet of Things presents a threat of security and privacy and how the concern is being addressed.

What standards have to do with the Internet of Things.

The social and economic changes that he believes we are about to undergo and how humanity will be impacted.

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Mike Malone is the world’s first daily tech reporter. As a veteran Silicon Valley journalist and author, he is intimately familiar with the evolution of this amazing high-tech mecca. In this two-part show, Mike takes us back to the very beginning when soldiers coming back from war changed the face of northern California. He then takes us through the emergence of the world’s greatest high-tech companies and ends with a view of what could bring about the demise of Silicon Valley or keep it infinitely sustainable.

Mike Malone: “Silicon Valley is really a nexus of a lot of different forces–historical forces and technological forces. It all kind of converged in the late 1940s.”

During his show, Mike talks about how it came to be that Silicon Valley is what Silicon Valley is:

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Mike Malone is the world’s first daily tech reporter. As a veteran Silicon Valley journalist and author, he is intimately familiar with the evolution of this amazing high-tech mecca. In this two-part show, Mike takes us back to the very beginning when soldiers coming back from war changed the face of northern California. He then takes us through the emergence of the world’s greatest high-tech companies and ends with a view of what could bring about the demise of Silicon Valley or keep it infinitely sustainable.

Mike Malone: “Silicon Valley is really a nexus of a lot of different forces–historical forces and technological forces. It all kind of converged in the late 1940s.”

During his show, Mike talks about how it came to be that Silicon Valley is what Silicon Valley is:

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Ethernet celebrated its 40 year anniversary earlier this year. For four decades, Ethernet has changed how people work and communicate all over the world.

Because of her position as President of the IEEE Standards Association, our very own Karen Bartleson had the privilege of interviewing Bob Metcalfe, co-inventor of Ethernet. With permission from the IEEE Standards Association, we are republishing this show so that you can enjoy Bob’s story of how Ethernet evolved from an interesting technology into a global standard.

Bob Metcalfe: “. . .we convinced Digital Equipment Corporation and Xerox to begin cooperating to develop something they could use to interconnect their products. So, here I have Digital Equipment Corporation, Xerox and Intel all discussing how they were going to build this network that they were going to use, and someone said, ‘. . . These are major US corporations conspiring in restraint of trade,’ . . .[so, we decided], ‘Why don’t we make it an open standard?’ . . .We created a project at IEEE and gave our standard to IEEE, and the IEEE project would made it a standard.”

During the show, Bob talks about:

The invention of Ethernet

At what point Ethernet start evolving and becoming a standard

How he thinks Ethernet and its subsequent incarnations are going to look like 40 years from now

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A virtual prototype can be a lonely thing unless it can play well with others. Integration of virtual prototypes requires using models from various sources. There must be model-to-model and as well as model-to-tool interoperability. Laurent shares how interoperability could be enhanced to enable a sustainable market for models and tools and provides a status on existing related standards.

Laurent Maillet-Contoz: “It is difficult [for virtual prototypes to interoperate], because models which are used to create virtual prototypes may come from various sources. . . If you do not have any standard, . . . you might decide to implement a model using your own specific interface, and I will select another choice, and in the end, it will not work. . . What we want is to ensure standard APIs so that models can compile and connect together and exchange information in a seamless way without adapters. If we want to ensure full interoperability, we need to have standards that expose interfaces for all kinds of communications.”

Laurent talks about:

why it is difficult for virtual prototypes to interoperate.

what goes into a standard that makes an interface that is interoperable.

one of the most difficult challenges he has faced in getting virtual prototypes to work together.

challenges that occur when you have models interoperate or interface with tools themselves.

advice he would give to an young engineer who is just starting out in virtual protyping and dealing with interoperabity issues.

For a company like Agnisys, collaboration is a must because customers need working solutions and collaboration is how you get those.

Anupam: “For a company like ours, collaboration is a must, because we provide solutions for the customers and when the solutions don’t work, then the customer complains, and we are out of business, so we have to collaborate.”

During the show, Anupam talks about:
• Experiences he has encountered where collaboration would have solved a big problem
• At what point competitors draw the line between sharing information with each other and protecting their intellectual property
• Whether or not he feels smaller companies have a lot to lose in collaboration
• Shares what it takes to create a startup company in EDA
• How, from his perspective, small companies work to collaborate
• How a company deals with collaboration and different time zones
• The advice he would give to a young engineer who is first starting out